Location. Location? Location!

 Rev. Debra McKnight's Sermon - February 16, 2020

Psalm 30

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up,

   and did not let my foes rejoice over me. 

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,

   and you have healed me. 

O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,

   restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. 

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,

   and give thanks to his holy name. 

For his anger is but for a moment;

   his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may linger for the night,

   but joy comes with the morning. 

Location. Location? Location!

The spirituality of the Psalms invites us to explore place, offering us concrete metaphors for the hard to names places in our lives like in the Pit and under the wing of God…imagine her as a big mama eagle or a mother Hen, your choice. The Psalms invite a journey, even if it's through metaphor. This should not surprise, as the Biblical narrative is full of journey and made up of pilgrims. Abraham and Sarah journey with God from the very start, leaving the folks they know the land they understand, the place of their identity to journey. The Hebrew people journey from bondage in Egypt through 40 years of wandering to a land of promise. Even prophets who don’t want to go on the journey, like Jonah, end up in the belly of a great fish headed to a new place. Our tradition speaks of Jesus inviting folks who fish to imagine their vocation in new ways, fishing for people to make a movement that changes the world. Jesus does not look at Peter and Andrew, James and John and say, we are going to cook out on this beach every single day…he takes them places they never imagined. Journey from known to unknown to possibility and gift. 

The Psalms start the journey in a hard space.  The pit.  A place where we feel lost and desolate, disconnected and voiceless. We know Joseph and his technicolor dream coat were tossed into the Pit. His coat of many colors…which could also be translated as “Princess Dress” were torn and his life, his agency, his voice and his future were stolen from him in that moment when his own brothers threw him in the Pit (Gen 37:22) Jeremiah, too, experiences the pit when his own people cannot hear his calls for justice and toss him in the Pit (Jeremiah 38:6-9). The Psalms sing of this pain, they name it and claim it.  It is not to be glossed over or cleaned up, it is a place where one feels diminished, brought low, oppressed on every side, the clarity of light is hard to find and the darkness surrounds. The brilliance is that the metaphor is concrete without limiting the prayer, you can feel the pit, personally or professionally, you can name your own pit as a diagnosis or a broken relationship, it can be grief at the loss of a child or the loss of a parent, it can be the physical or emotional. You name the pit and it only matters if you bring your own feelings to the poetry, if you can acknowledge your own pain. 

The gift of the pit in the Psalms is that we don’t have to stay there. Walter Brueggemann names a transition, this call of anguish from the Pit becomes a cry of vengeance and eventually a cry of thanksgiving. Of course, we modern folks would prefer a process without this middle part. The poetry of vengeance is striking and unnerving, isn’t it enough to just name our pain in a world where we should be fine; now we have to examine our rage and anger too! Why would the Psalms ask so much of us?!?! Anger and rage makes us nervous, our own and others, but avoiding it means we probably don’t have the chance to wholeheartedly transition to the cry of thanksgiving. Vengeance in the Psalms is honest, hurt spoken in truth, wanting the folks who put us in the pit to experience the pit themselves. There is a sense of naming this hurt and saying God does not sit on the sidelines, but exploring God to drive a path towards justice. These cries for vengeance are for God to act, God to right the injustice and they are not about direct retaliation by the one praying. They are raw and it is hard to read Psalm 137. It is set by the rivers, when the Babylonians have paused and make their captives sing their songs but all of the captives are filled with hurt the future that was taken. Their homeland destroyed, their families murdered. The Psalmist does not give up on God’s presence even if their pain is so palpable they wish the babies of their captors beaten against the rocks. They want them to know the hurt they have inflicted, their future stolen away too. This is real, this is human and this is hard for us to read. Perhaps it is made more challenging by the fact that the vast majority of us have more in common with the Babylonians than with the Jewish Psalmist. These places in scripture ask us to read from the other side of the redlines, concentration camps and border walls. To read from a place of having your child taken by border agents or your child washed up on the shore when all you were seeking refuge from violence. The Psalms are honest, that is why they are powerful, no emotion is too ugly or raw for God. The truth is not hidden just because it is unpleasant. If we cannot be honest, we cannot be liberated on the journey. 

If we take the hard and honest journey we find a new location, under the wing, in a place of refuge, on solid ground, lifted up. 

Psalm 17:8

Guard me as the apple of the eye;

   hide me in the shadow of your wings,

Deuteronomy 32: 11

As an eagle stirs up its nest,

   and hovers over its young;

as it spreads its wings, takes them up,

   and bears them aloft on its pinions, 

Psalm 57:1

Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, For my soul takes refuge in You; And in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge Until destruction passes by.

Psalm 61:4

Let me dwell in Your tent forever; Let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings.

Psalm 63:7

For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.

Imagine God, holding you under the wing. A space of love and connection, a place of warmth and care. You are tucked in, you are safe, your can be heard, you are loved. This is the journey and a place of thanksgiving. Who are the people that make that wing space for you? What are the spaces of refuge that you seek? How do we make them for others? That is the work of the wing.

The Psalm gives us places to explore, metaphors that are concrete but open for us to claim and name. But they require you to do the work. The Psalms will not matter if you decide to stay in the pit…just because you are familiar with the walls and contours you have come to know. It will not matter if we stay right where we are. Faith is about journey, like Abraham and Sarah, like James and John and Peter and Andrew and everyone else that encounters God. May we have to courage to follow. Amen.

Psalms: A Spiritual Workout

Sermon Preached by Rev. Debra McKnight

February 9, 2020

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

   He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters; 

   he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths

   for his name’s sake. 

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

   I fear no evil;

for you are with me;

   your rod and your staff—

   they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me

   in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

   my cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

   all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

   my whole life long.

Psalm 22

I am poured out like water,

   and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

   it is melted within my breast; 

my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,

   and my tongue sticks to my jaws;

   you lay me in the dust of death. 

For dogs are all around me;
   a company of evildoers encircles me.
My hands and feet have shriveled;
I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me;
they divide my clothes among themselves,
   and for my clothing they cast lots. 

But you, O Lord, do not be far away!
   O my help, come quickly to my aid!
Deliver my soul from the sword,
   my life from the power of the dog!
   Save me from the mouth of the lion!

Psalms: A Spiritual Work Out

These are some heavy phrases…so heavy and raw we don’t often read them in church…with all the nice church people around. And just a point of clarification the part about dogs surrounding you wasn’t really a happy image, which is why its important to know the context. Ancient Mediterranean dogs don’t go to dog parks, have birthday parties or dine on gourmet food; they travel in packs, scouting for scraps. The Psalm names the hard spaces, boldly, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” The Psalm asks us to bring feeling empty, feeling out of sorts to the reading. The Psalmist knows heartbreak and honors it as sacred and in a world where we always say we are ‘fine' saying, “my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;” is brave and honest and refreshing…perhaps. The language of the Psalms requires our whole hearts and when we pray with the Psalms, “my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” we are asked to remember the times when it felt like everything went dry and there was not a drop of water to quench our thirst. Psalm 22 is the Psalm that Jesus prays on the cross, surrounded by enemies, pierced by the sword, heart melted, mouth dry; Jesus cries out and claims ancient word when he can not find his own, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” It is real. The language is bold and honest and it never gives up on God’s presence. 

The league of the Psalms liberates us and forces us beyond our norms. We as modern folks not only seek equilibrium and balance, we try to make it so. We make things fine by saying we are fine, we keep ourselves from our tears and numb our broken hearts with Netflix or wine or shopping or a thousand other things. But the Psalms are poetry, poetry that makes us work! Walter Brueggemann names our modern sensibility of language as a “positivistic understanding of language” suggesting that we try to name with clarity rather than impact what we describe. We are more familiar with the language of history textbooks or newspapers and scientific journals or legal briefs than we are of poetry. But the Psalms, if we are to pray them have to be undertaken as emotive and evocative speech. They are passionate and resist rules. They are filled with phrases and metaphors and they require your whole heart. They are not meant to be read in order or as proof that God walks beside literal still waters in a green pasture or literally lays us down in dust. It is space that draws meaning to our experience if we are willing to bring it. These metaphors are bold enough to make space for our grief and our joy. The Psalms offer this collective wisdom shared from generation to generation over thousands of years, the lows are low and the highs are incredible. The Psalms of Thanksgiving speak a possibility that is unseen, just like God creates in the first creation story (Genesis 1), the Psalms speak a table of abundance into reality, they proclaim God’s order and rule as king, they pray us into our boldest best selves, one word at at time. 

I invite you to look at them, they are shocking and they ask to be felt. Maybe one phrase will find a space in your heart in a way that it didn’t last year. The metaphors stretch and grow with us. Bruggemann points to three key metaphors that you find throughout the Psalms. The first is Enemies; they surround, they bring a feeling of shame, they laugh at us, they threaten and they threatened destruction…maybe of one or many or a whole community. And yet the Psalms of thanksgiving proclaim a bold counter, God as King, God ordering and re-ordering, protecting the vulnerable and interceding. We can imagine praying this even as tyrants deal death from on high and praying it we can call ourselves to a different way forward, being a part of a new order and making earth as it is in heaven. 

The second metaphor we see repeated in the Complaint Psalms relates to our deep grief and our outpouring of tears, so many tears that Bruggemann calls it a “Diet of Tears.” I don’t know if this diet has any points on the Weight Watchers system or if it's keto but that's why its a metaphor. 

Psalm 6:6

I am weary with my moaning;

   every night I flood my bed with tears;

   I drench my couch with my weeping.

Psalm 42:3

My tears have been my food

   day and night,

while people say to me continually,

   ‘Where is your God?’ 

The Complaint Psalms name our weeping without holding back and it's not about literally God making bread out of our tears, it's about honoring our grief. But the Psalms love us enough to push us to a metaphor of abundance and the diet of tears give way to a table of abundance, with all the fattest foods and the best wine. Psalm 23 says, “You prepare a table in the presence of my enemies…my cup runs over.” There is a table of abundance and one who was mocked is now honored, anointed even and filled. Psalm 146:7 claims a God, “Who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.” This work of feeding and nourishment, invites us to bring our table memories to our spiritual work, to hold on with gratitude to the laughter shared and the bread broken at every table when we pray about God’s table. The Psalms of Thanksgiving call us to remember the gifts and to make them possible for others, when we remember the table; we can set the table with glad hearts. 

The third metaphor you find in the Complaint Psalms is being trampled; trapped under foot, the rich trample the poor, it is passive, there is no choice, there is no action, it is being pushed down. Bruggemann identifies the metaphor of Thanksgiving as clapping and singing and praising God’s goodness. This is action, this is collective energy in response, it claims power and makes noise and its not just the people, even creation makes this noise when the trees of the field clap their hands (Isaiah 55).  The counter to being trampled is speaking goodness and dwelling in God’s great love with joy. It is a relentless refusal to be brought low by the world.

The Psalms say to us bring it all, bring your melted heart, your tears that drench the couch and the enemies that surround like dogs on the hunt; they give us the language to be honest rather than ‘just fine.’ Being honest is the only way forward. Perhaps that is why the Psalms of Thanksgiving push us to evoke something new in the world, to sing songs and set the table, they call us to speak something beyond our bitterness and broken hearts. The language honors our pain and frames our healing. The Psalms call us to pray something, and by praying, to pray it into being, to embody life and give new life. 

May we have the courage. Amen